Posts Tagged: Titles

Monday 19th October 2009

Twas the Brazilian Grand Prix a few hours ago, and some of you might know the result.

Interlagos usually makes for a good race, and this year’s was no different. It was really entertaining watching the different strategies play out over the race distance and trying to work out how it would pan out – and more importantly how it would affect the driver’s championship. There was plenty of overtaking (especially from Button, who drove an absolutely sublime race), a lot of drama and passion and the odd bit of fire. Basically, all the things that make F1 great were in abundance and it was an absolute joy to watch. Anyone who doesn’t get the attraction of motorsport and has never watched a race I implore you to get on iPlayer now and watch it (or the highlights if you’ve got the attention span of a newt), because you might find you enjoy it.

So what did one of my housemates say was the best bit? “When Kovalainen left the pit too early and showered fuel on Raikkonen and it caught fire!!!”. Dick. (Raikkonen finished 6th by the way, despite getting petrol in his eyes and – im not sure if this is true – burning his face slightly. Not a bad effort)

Most importantly, BrawnGP and Jenson Button won the constructor’s and driver’s championships respectively. So that’s 2 British world champion drivers in the field now, and another British champion team. As a country we’re very quick to denigrate ourselves when it comes to sport. People say we’re crap because we never win anything, but motorsport is the one thing that we absolutely dominate. As a country, we’ve won more F1 world titles than anyone else and most of the cars are built here. When a young driver wants to make a name for themselves, they come to Britain because our junior racing series are the best in the world, because most of the best teams are based here. Yet how many people know that much about it, compared to football say?

In Italy, Ferrari is as big as the football team is here. It’s a Big Deal when they launch their new F1 car; it makes the national news. Everything that goes on at the team is scrutinised by the Italian media, in the same way that everything to do with the England football team is scrutinised here. Ferrari isn’t just “an F1 team”, it’s basically the Italian F1 team and if you drive for them you’re driving for Italy.

My point is that we have the Williams, BrawnGP, McLaren, Force India, Renault and Red Bull teams all based in Britain. Why the lack of support? Meh.